


After the Rain

by mimosa-supernova (FourCatProductions)



Series: Desert Rain [2]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Artists, Character Development, Character Study, F/F, Family Issues, Gratuitous Imagery, Mild Sexual Content, Nude Modeling, Romance, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 15:07:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17449304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourCatProductions/pseuds/mimosa-supernova
Summary: In which Haley accidentally snaps a photo of Leah swimming naked one morning, and it's all uphill from there.





	1. One

In the heady, early parts of spring that year, Cindersap’s rivers flooded their banks, driven wild by their first taste of freedom from winter. They raged for days in a frenzy, churning the ground to a muddy pulp, only to subside back into tranquility as quickly as they’d abandoned it. The grass began to grow once more, the animals emerging from hibernation, and Mayor Lewis declared it safe to go into the forest as soon as the fallen trees and debris drudged up by the water had been cleared away. Miraculously, Leah’s cabin remained untouched, even though she lived next to the river and should have been driven to higher ground long before anyone else.

“Maybe she asked Rasmodius to put protection charms on it,” Emily had said over lunch the other day, a dreamy look in her eye, and it’s this that Haley is thinking about as she hurries along the road past Marnie’s ranch, camera in hand. The creepy hermit who lives in the tower deep in the woods isn’t a wizard, no matter what Emily thinks, and Leah’s cabin isn’t enchanted. Just far enough from the bank, and lucky. She still gives it a wide berth when she enters the forest.

Cindersap is beautiful no matter the season, but never lovelier than it is in the spring, soft and grey as a dove’s wing in the pre-dawn light. Mist shrouds the trees and blankets the ground, the flowers all shades of pastel and sparkling with diamond dew; even the air smells different here, rich and loamy, and the water flows sweet throughout. It’s the kind of morning that makes one tread more carefully, reverent in the face of newly blossoming splendor. Mud squelches beneath Haley’s borrowed boots as she takes the path down to the dock that stretches out over Cindersap Lake, that same mist kissing its still waters.

This early in the day, too early for sunrise or even birdsong, she likes to pretend she’s stepped into a different world, silent and frosted silver. Haley doesn’t believe in magic, but there’s something irresistibly alien about the forest that draws her in, makes her want to capture even a sliver of the breathless longing it invokes on film, and that’s as close to it as the world has to offer. She stands at the edge of the dock, the air damp on her face, and breathes.

First come the test photos, to investigate various angles and the interplay of light and shadow while she decides where she wants to set up – sunrise is getting close, and she wants the best possible view. Then a few snaps of the surrounding greenery and a pair of ducks nesting sleepily in the reeds, and a truly spectacular shot of mist breaking over the dark water like ice floes that she can’t wait to develop. The sky is light by the time she’s ready, and she tries to be patient, laying flat on her belly with her camera at the ready. She doesn’t like getting dirty, but these are last season’s jeans and one of her dad’s old flannel shirts; worth sacrificing for the shot, in other words. She braces her toes against one of the planks, fingers poised in anticipation. Seconds later, her foot slips against the damp wood and kicks something. She goes up on her elbows and twists around to glare at the offending item, but she can’t quite make it out from this angle. It looks like a pair of boots and some clothes, but that can’t be right. Who leaves an entire outfit just sitting in the woods?

She doesn’t have time for this. She refocuses her attention on the horizon, biting her lip in concentration. _Any second now._

The lake ripples, wind shaking the reeds, and Haley looks again, closer this time. Now that she’s paying attention, there’s definitely something swimming towards the dock, hidden just beneath the water’s surface. Her stomach clenches, and she raises her camera an inch or two, heart beating a little faster in anticipation.

The first rays of sunlight break the skyline as Leah breaks through lake water and mist alike, flinging her sodden hair out of her face and gasping for breath, the long line of her neck on display. The camera’s shutter snaps. In Haley’s ears, it might as well be a gunshot, panic already starting to set in, because Leah is naked, she’s _so very naked_ and as soon as she sees Haley and her camera, it’s all over, there’s no way she isn’t going to be furious –

But Leah doesn’t notice her, laying there clutching her camera like a murder weapon. She stands waist-deep in the water now, her back to the shore. Pale light spills across her skin and turns the hair plastered there into skeins of fire, blazing against the chill grey-gold of morning. She is marble and flame, wild and sleek, a goddess just arrived on the mortal plane, and maybe, just maybe, Haley believes in magic for a second. Without really meaning to, she raises her camera. Leah turns her head. She meets Haley’s eyes just as the shutter clicks for a second time.

“Haley?”

The moment, already tenuous, breaks. Haley scrambles to her feet, cheeks burning and her tongue fat and useless in her mouth. She has no idea what to say. What the hell is wrong with her? And while she was on the subject, what the hell is wrong with Leah? She just stands there, not even attempting to cover herself, looking at Haley with this weirdly calm expression like she’s expecting an answer. Like Haley’s the naked one and she’s fully dressed.

“Haley,” Leah says again, softer now. Haley’s never felt uglier in her life, or more exposed. She grabs her camera bag and flees the scene.

 

The next few days are weird. Most because of how normal they are. Haley doesn’t touch her camera, and life marches on. She and Emily argue over chores, Alex drags her out running by the beach now that the weather’s nice, and Pelican Town remains sublimely dull. It’s like Saturday morning never happened.

It’s also pretty easy to avoid Leah, since she doesn’t go to the Saloon or the forest unless she’s taking photos. Not that she’s going out of her way to avoid Leah or anything. She’s not _scared_. She just doesn’t know what to say yet. She’s still not even sure what happened.

An apology is needed, she knows. Owed, really. But apologizing means dealing with the fact that it happened at all, and Haley’s not ready for that, either. Her film from that day sits in the camera still, waiting patiently for her attention to return. She gives in the following weekend after lunch and locks herself in the dark room.

Normally, she finds the process of developing her photos satisfying. There are few things that make her feel so complete as watching the images emerge from nothing and sharpen into focus, so at peace as when she hangs the prints to dry and thinks _I took that. I made that happen._ But this time her hands shake, developer rippling as she lays sheet after sheet of contact paper in the tubs and transfers the negatives. Everything looks sinister now, washed over in dull red light. She paces while she waits.

The first few photos are the test shots. She dismisses them and moves on. No hidden gems to be found there. Then there are the various shots of the lake and surrounding foliage, all of which are perfectly average examples of nature photography, but there’s nothing about them that’s worth a second glance. When she gets to the last two, the ones with Leah, she hesitates, then decides to wait until she can take them out of the dark room. In a weird way, she feels like she owes that to Leah, too – if someone accidentally snapped a naked photo of her, she’d want them to own up to their crime in broad daylight, too. ‘Accidentally’ being the key word. She isn’t a creep. It had just been a case of bad timing. When she finally brings them into the light, though, timing is the least of her worries.

Hands down, they’re the best pictures she’s ever taken. The first one was born of pure luck, Leah bursting from the water, her hair a glorious mane caught mid-flip against the sky, water droplets scattered and frozen in time. Her throat is arched, her breasts are bared, but no details are shown; she’s little more than a silhouette backlit by the emerging glow of the sun. Even though her face is shadowed, she radiates peace, like tension breaking after a storm. But it’s the last one Haley can’t stop looking at.

It’s light, subject and composition, singing in perfect harmony: Leah faces away from the camera, off-center, but her head is turned, one side of her face visible. Sunrise robes her bare skin, sets a crown of fire upon her head; the swell of her hip is poetry where it meets the water. The lake around her is smooth as glass. But it’s her one eye that captures the viewer where it peers towards the camera, along with the faint curve of her lips. _I know,_ her expression seems to say. _There are no secrets here._

Haley is so screwed.

 

This is normally where she’d ask for advice, but there’s no one to ask. Emily can never know, and she can’t exactly write to _Glamour_ ’s advice column about it. Normally she’d suck it up and talk to Alex, since he could usually be trusted to keep his mouth shut, but there’s no way he won’t be gross about this. She’s on her own, and so far, she’s drawing a blank.

Why didn’t they make cards for times like these? Or maybe she could try baked goods. That was Emily’s go-to after an argument. “I’m sorry I accidentally took naked photos of you” cakes were totally a thing, right?

(It is not a thing, Haley’s Google searches assure her, but it should be.)

In the end, she slips both pictures into a manila envelope, along with their negatives and a handwritten apology, and shoves it into Leah’s mailbox the following morning.

 _Leah,_ the note says, carefully penned on her nicest stationary. _I’m sorry about the other day. It was an accident. I didn’t know anyone else would be out that early. These are the only copies. Please don’t mention this to anyone. Sorry again._

_Haley_

It’s not the most eloquent letter ever written, but it gets the point across. A small, terrible part of Haley almost resents Leah for putting her into such an awkward position to begin with, even though she knows perfectly well it’s not Leah’s fault. She hates feeling vulnerable. She doesn’t _make_ mistakes, she tells herself, taking the shortcut home. If anything, Leah’s the one who should be embarrassed. It’s mean, but it makes her feel better. And then guilty, but mostly better.

Three hours later, Leah shows up at her door.

Haley only answers because Emily is at the store and she assumes that it’s Alex on the other side. It’s not like anyone else comes to hang out with her, not anymore. And it’s just Alex, so it doesn’t matter that she’s wearing sweatpants with minimal makeup and eating coconut cake at eleven AM.

“Hold on,” she yells, mouth full, and heaves herself off the couch. It drives Emily nuts when she eats in the living room, but sometimes she just wants to pig out and watch _The Real Housewives of Zuzu City_ at the same time, and a few crumbs inevitably end up between the cushions. Is that really such a crime? “I’m coming!”

But when she opens the door, Alex is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s Leah who stands on the straw welcome mat, manila envelope in hand.

“Hi,” she says. “Can we talk?”

Haley slams the door in her face.

Not her finest moment, to be sure, but she’s not prepared to have that particular conversation right then. Definitely not before she’s put on her eyebrows. If Leah thinks she’s a bitch, so be it – everyone else does. What else is she even supposed to say? She’s already apologized, and _you’ve been walking around naked in my head for the past week_ isn’t an option.

Unless…

No. Definitely not an option.

Leah knocks again, more insistent this time. “Haley, please. Open the door.”

Go away, Haley wants to yell, but that’s too childish, even for her. She leans against the door, fingers splayed and varnish cool against her palms, and bites her tongue. Leah sighs, muffled by two inches of solid oak.

“Okay. Not now. But soon, alright?”

She leaves. Haley sneaks over to the window to watch her through the blinds until she’s out of sight. As soon as Leah is gone, she flops onto the couch and turns the show back on, but her heart isn’t in it. Her stomach hurts for the rest of the day. She blames it on the cake.

 

She doesn’t hate her sister. She doesn’t. Emily just pisses her off.

More accurately, the way everyone treats Emily pisses her off.

Haley’s the pretty one, but Emily’s the smart one, the trustworthy one, the _nice_ one, the one who knows the value of an honest day’s work. She used to hoard that title, “The Pretty One”, hanging onto it with greedy hands, but now that they’re both adults, it rings hollow in a way that it didn’t before. She sits at her vanity and tries on different shades of lipstick while Emily spends her evenings warm and laughing, surrounded by people who actually care about what she has to say.

It sucks. Mostly because nobody had ever bothered to tell Haley that being pretty wasn’t the singular ingredient for a charmed life. She can go to Zuzu City, she’s learned, and flirt her way into discounts and phone numbers and free drinks, but at the end of the day, she still comes home to a town of people who have learned to see right through her.

So yeah, she’s a little resentful. But as annoying as Emily can be with her endless patience and compassion and good cheer, she’s also right about a lot of things. Namely, that ignoring your problems doesn’t make them go away, and Haley’s reaching the end of her rope. She’d hoped the apology letter would have been enough, but Leah clearly doesn’t agree, and the guilt is starting to gnaw at her. Not because she’d messed up – she’d tried to fix that – but because she can’t stop thinking about it. About Leah’s long red hair wet from the lake, water glistening on her finely-muscled back, and whether or not something else would have happened if she’d stayed. She’s moping around in the living room, trying to drown out her thoughts with music while Emily gets ready for work, when an envelope falls through the mail slot, accompanied by a short knock.

“Haley, can you get that?”

Haley rolls her eyes and gets off the couch. At first, she thinks it might be junk mail, but there’s no return address. Just a plain, flat envelope with her name printed across the front. She snatches it off the doormat, heart pounding, and Emily pokes her head through the doorway while she finishes fastening her earrings. They’re gold and have little dangly charms on them that look like horseshoes.

“Anything interesting?”

“Nope,” Haley lies, pressing it against her thigh so the front is hidden. “Just another magazine subscription.”

She waits until Emily leaves for work to open it, hands shaking with equal parts impatience and dread. Inside is a rectangle of stiff white paper no bigger than a postcard, and on it is a drawing of Haley herself, refined with ink and washed over with watercolors. In it, she leans on the fence down by the old farm, surrounded by sunflowers. She’s touching the petals of the nearest flower, expression dreamy, and Haley forgets for a second that it’s all paint and ink and tries to touch one too.

Is this how Leah sees her? Does she know that Haley goes to lose herself in the sunflower fields every summer?

She flips it over to find Leah’s neat, blocky handwriting. _Your photos are amazing. Bring your portfolio to my cabin tomorrow?_

Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe Leah is planning on doing something to even the score; Haley has no way of knowing. She could just not go, she reminds herself. She could avoid Leah forever, if she really wanted to. But even as she thinks these things, she hides the painting away in the bottom drawer of her desk, where she keeps all her happiest memories – letters from her parents, every birthday card Alex and Emily have ever given her, the letter from _Country Living_ magazine informing her that her submission was their contest winner – and goes to dig up her old binder. Even if she doesn’t go, it’s still not a bad idea. Her portfolio could use some work. She’s up until midnight refining her selection, and it’s only the click of Emily’s heels in the entryway that drives her to turn out the light.

 

Leah’s cabin is what most people would call ‘homey’, and what Haley would usually refer to as a ‘total crapshack’, but she has to admit, Leah’s really fixed the place up. It’s a little messy, but comfortable and well-cared for, paints and sculpting tools strewn about the living room and windchimes tinkling over the planter full of basil in the window. Lived-in, Haley’s mom would have called it.

“Sorry again. I wasn’t expecting you so early.” Leah smiles at her. The smile in and of itself isn’t the problem. It’s the smile, paired with the world’s tightest yoga pants and matching sports bra. She’d put on a slouchy, off-the-shoulder shirt, but that just made it worse. Haley hadn’t known someone’s collarbone could be so distracting. “Can I?”

Haley nods and hands over the binder. The next few minutes are quiet. Leah flips through her portfolio, occasionally stopping to linger, and Haley drinks her tea and tries to look anywhere but Leah. She doesn’t really like tea, but this isn’t bad, sweet and earthy with a dash of cream.

“You have a real eye for composition,” Leah says finally, and hands the binder back. Haley cradles it in her lap. “And you’re not afraid to experiment. You’ve got some good stuff here.”

Haley still isn’t sure of Leah’s motivations, but she also doesn’t share her work with many people, and she can’t help but bask in the praise. “You think so?”

“I do,” Leah assures her, and her smile shifts into something mischievous. “Although, as conceited as it sounds, I think I still like the two you took of me best.”

“You’re not mad?” Haley blurts. Leah laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, but it still makes her feel hot all over.

“No. I appreciate that you gave me the negatives, but I think they’re lovely, and I’m not just saying that because I’m in them.” She takes a sip of her own tea. “The human body is most interesting in its natural state. Nudity is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Totally,” Haley agrees, relieved.

“Speaking of which.” Leah smiles over the rim of her mug. “I have a proposal for you.”

“What kind of proposal?” She hopes she sounds normal. She’s _trying_ to sound normal. If Leah notices, she doesn’t let on.

“I’ve been thinking about getting back into painting for a while now, but I haven’t felt inspired enough to act on it. Not until I saw those photos.” She’s looking directly into Haley’s eyes now, serene and utterly serious. “Model for me.”

“Model for a painting,” Haley says after a moment. “Nude?”

“Nude,” Leah confirms. “I have a vision.”

Now that she understands why Leah invited her here, it doesn’t take Haley long to mull it over. She’s not ashamed of her body – if anything, the thought of showing it off for something as classy as a painting appeals. But mostly, she wants the guilt to stop digging at her like a hangnail, and this seems as good a remedy as any. Leah gets her painting, and Haley comes away with a clear conscience. Everyone wins.

“Deal.”

Leah invites her to stay for lunch, but Haley makes up some lame excuse about helping Alex’s grandma around the house. She can only handle so much more of Leah prancing around in the most flattering pair of pants in the Ferngill Republic. Before she leaves, though, Leah takes the binder and flips to the last picture, where last summer’s moonlight jellies bob like colored lanterns on the black swell of the waves.

“Can I keep this one?” she asks, almost shy. “I’ll pay you.”

Nobody’s ever offered to buy anything of hers outright. Haley leaves twenty bucks richer, a photo lighter, and with Leah’s instructions to come back on Monday. She hums the whole way home.

 

In her teens, Haley had done some brief modeling stints when she needed extra cash. She was never going to be tall enough for runway or thin enough for high fashion, but she could book catalogues and commercials like nobody’s business, and there were still ads circulating for department stores in Zuzu with her face. Nothing high-end, nothing anyone would recognize her for, but proof nonetheless that she could. She’s discovered that she likes being behind the camera more than in front of it, but she’s still sort of looking forward to modeling for a painting. She’s never tried that before. But as soon as Monday evening rolls around, they hit a snag.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Leah just shakes her head, blocking the doorway. Haley fumes.

“Are you serious? I spent like two hours getting ready!” She’d had to wait until Emily left for work to do most of it, not wanting to fend off a bunch of questions about where she was going all dolled up. Leah looked almost pained.

“That’s the problem. I’m interested in authenticity, Haley. Not artifice.” Upon seeing Haley’s blank look, she clarified. “Come back without all that makeup and product in your hair, and we’ll get started.”

For a second, Haley is tempted to tell her where she can stick her self-righteous attitude. She’s allowed to dress and look however she wants, it’s like, one of the pillars of feminism, and Leah doesn’t get to tell her what to do. But she’s also not one to back down from a challenge, and artists don't offer to paint her every day (even though they totally should).

“Fine,” she huffs. “But I’m not walking all the way back to town just for that. Let me use your bathroom.”

“Door at the end of the hall,” Leah says, and steps aside.

The cabin is bigger than it looks on the outside, with a second bedroom that Leah converted to a studio some time back and a reading nook attached to the living room. She has to go through the master bedroom to use the bathroom, tucked away at the other end of the building. Both are sparse, impersonal; they don’t belong with the well-loved chaos that is the rest of the house. Haley scrubs off as much of her makeup as she can, traces of eyeliner smeared down to her cheekbones, and rakes her hands through her hair, letting it fall loose to her shoulders. She doesn’t _need_ makeup. It’s not a big deal.

Except for the part where she looks like the world’s sluttiest racoon.

Two more attempts, and she gives up and leaves the way she came, wishing she’d brought makeup remover. At least most of it is gone. She glances at the bed as she leaves – it’s just big enough for two people, tucked away in the corner with its comforters and pillow pristine. She has to wonder if Leah ever uses it.

Back in the studio, Leah has been busy setting up. It reminds Haley of a bird’s nest when she steps through the door, built from wood and brightly-colored baubles, paint-spattered sheets hanging like curtains and crumpled around the base of the easel. Knick-knacks and photographs line the shelves, interspersed with rocks and chunks of glittering mineral, and bunches of dried flowers hang from the ceiling, scent muted but still sweet. It’s as messy as the rest of the cabin, but not in a bad way. When Leah sees her, she nods, as if to say _that’s better._ A small platform sits in the center of the room, piled with cushions and pillows and draped with a rich red blanket that spills off the edge. Haley hesitates, and Leah stops arranging her charcoal long enough to give her an encouraging smile.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. It’s okay to be nervous.”

Haley is _not_ nervous. She’s never been nervous in her life. She marches onto the platform, pulling her shirt over her head on the way up. The crack in Leah’s composure is totally worth it, even if she smooths it over immediately, and Haley feels vindicated in her decision not to wear a bra that day. It had seemed kind of pointless, considering why she’s there. She unzips her skirt and lets it fall down her legs, then kicks it away.

“Now what?”

Leah circles her, appraising, like Haley is no more than another block of wood waiting to be sculpted. It’s not how people usually look at her while she’s naked. Not that she’s disappointed or anything. That would be weird, to be disappointed. She’s here to be art, not a cheap lay.

“I’m going to do some sketches first,” Leah finally decides, and picks up an old kitchen timer from her pile of supplies, fiddling with the dial. “I’ll set it to go off every five minutes, so when you hear it, do a different pose, okay?”

“What kind of pose?”

“Anything you want. Just make it dynamic.”

This, Haley can do.

Modeling for a traditional artist is a lot different than modeling for a photo. It takes a lot longer, for one, and involves a lot more holding still, but Haley doesn’t hate it. It’s kind of fun, trying to think of cool poses for Leah to draw and imagining how they’ll turn out on paper. For her part, Leah is quiet, lower lip tucked between her teeth. The only sounds that come from her side of the room are the whispery strokes of charcoal on fiber and the shrill, intermittent ring of the timer. A bird chirps just outside the window.

Only once does Leah offer any kind of correction. Haley is tired of standing, so for her last pose, she sits on one of the pillows and drapes the blanket artfully across her lap, one leg bent at the knee and the other extended. Leah examines her, then sets the charcoal down.

“Can I?”

Haley nods, even though she’s not sure what she’s agreeing to. She’s startled when Leah kneels next to the platform, braid falling over her shoulder in a red-gold ribbon. Her hands are callused and warm, fingers strong; one cups Haley’s ankle while the other comes to rest just above her knee, guiding her leg closer to her chest. She adjusts the arch of Haley’s foot, leaving smudges of charcoal behind, then tucks some of Haley’s hair behind her ear and smiles.

“There.”

Haley doesn’t hear the timer go off.

 

Leah draws her for two more sessions before settling on a pose. Haley knows the basic concept behind the painting, but that’s as much as Leah will tell her – any details will have to wait until its reveal. Alex texts her. She ignores him and then feels guilty about it, enough so that she lets him talk her into dropping off a bunch of his grandma’s tulips at the old farm. He’s trying to get the new farmer to notice him. How going through her is supposed to accomplish that, Haley doesn’t know, but she leaves the flowers on the porch anyway. It gives her an excuse to see the sunflower fields, ever closer to blooming.

So, no, Leah won’t let her see the painting, but she does open up in other ways while she sketches on the canvas. Mostly about trips she’s taken or artists that have influenced her, or the three weeks she spent camping in the Calico Desert beneath the stars. She doesn’t talk much about her old life back in Zuzu, but Haley kind of wishes she would, if only to understand why she left. She can’t imagine anyone willingly giving up the excitement of the city for some place like Pelican Town. But when she brings it up, Leah shakes her head and looks kind of sad.

“It’s not always that simple.”

“What do you mean?” Haley’s arm trembles. Leah had her standing facing the canvas, one arm extended up and to the side like she’s plucking fruit from a tree – a common pose in classical paintings, she’s been assured. She’s trying her best not to move, but it’s _hard_. Her left arm is going to be way more jacked than her right by the end of this. Maybe she’ll bug Alex to let her borrow some of his smaller weights. On the other side of the canvas, Leah hesitates, hand pausing in its movements.

“I have an ex,” she says finally. “Back in the city.” Haley stays quiet. A few seconds pass before Leah continues. “We were together for three years. Lived together and everything. But she never supported my art, not really.” Her mouth twists wryly. “She wanted us both to settle down with high-paying corporate jobs, kids, the whole nine yards. Ironic, considering all she did was sit around and play video games on the couch that _I_ paid for.”

The takeaway from this shouldn’t be that Leah dates women, but it’s kind of all Haley can focus on right then. She nods and makes noises that she hopes sound sympathetic.

“Anyway, it got to the point where she wanted to talk marriage, and I was thinking about caving and buying a ring. Maybe she was right, you know? Maybe it was crazy to think I could make it as an artist. And then, I found out that I was up for a promotion at my old job. Junior VP of Public Relations. And I swear to Yoba that when they offered it to me, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.” She laughs. “Sounds silly, I know, but I realized then that I’d let my life turn into something I never wanted, and if I kept going down that path I’d be miserable. So I resigned instead, went home, and told Kel I was moving out. Broke my lease and had to change my phone number, but it was worth it.”

“But _… here_?” Haley asks, and Leah laughs.

“Believe it or not, this place has artistic potential. It’s special.” At Haley’s skeptical look, she puts a charcoal-stained hand over her heart, pretending to be hurt. “Should I find another muse? I can, if you hate spending time with me that much.”

She’s teasing, Haley knows, but that doesn’t stop a flash of jealousy from stabbing through her. She’s already come to think of this painting, this time with Leah, as hers, and the idea of someone else moving in on it makes her want to break every fragile thing in the studio.

“Please,” she says instead. “Like you could find another model in this podunk.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Pelican Town is full of surprises.”

“Like what?”

Leah just smiles and doesn’t answer her.

 

They begin to fall into a routine. Twice a week, Haley waits until Emily leaves for work, then goes to Leah’s, where she models for a few hours before creeping home around midnight and pretending to be asleep when her sister gets home. She can’t go every night, not unless she wants Alex breathing down her neck. He already complains that they never hang out anymore, until she distracts him by hinting that the farmer goes to relax at the spa most evenings. All that hard work is enough to make anyone sore.

She wonders what they’d say if they knew, Alex and Emily. If they’d think less of her, or that she’d gone a little crazy from winter letting up. _Spring fever_ , her dad used to call it – the restlessness that bloomed with new life. Maybe it is just spring fever, and come summer she’ll forget about the green of Leah’s eyes and the curve of her lips, her lean-muscled forearms and capable hands. But even as she thinks this, she knows it’s too late to go back. There’s something between them now, even if it only comes to life in photographs and paintings; something that will link them long after they’ve moved on to other projects.

It’s a problem.

What if she’s imagining things, and Leah doesn’t feel it too? Every time she sets foot in the cabin, it’s like another layer is stripped away. How long before there’s nothing left? And yet, she still goes, night after night. Can’t stay away, if she’s being honest. She soaks up Leah’s attention like a flower, her petals unfurling in the sun.

They talk during their sessions. Usually about art, but sometimes other things too, like nature and food and fashion. Other times it’s just comfortable silence, with only the tinkling of the windchimes in the background. When Haley needs a break, they sit at the table and drink dandelion tea, and Leah asks her questions. What does she want to do with her life? Who’s her favorite photographer? Would she ever want to do an exhibition, and what would be the theme if she did? She’s been asked most of these things before, usually by family or well-meaning teachers, but with Leah, it doesn’t feel like an interrogation. It feels like she genuinely wants to know.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Haley admits to her once, staring down into her teacup. “The only things I feel really, like, passionate about are photography and fashion, but I don’t think I could do them for a living.”

“Why not?” Leah asks. Haley shrugs.

“Because.” Because her parents were forever telling her to develop more practical interests. Because it was hard work and she might fail. Because all she’d ever been was pretty. “I’m not the next Diane Arbus or anything.”

“Diane Arbus had her time. Don’t be the next anything.” Leah sips at her tea. “Be the first Haley Hoffman.”

Haley rolls her eyes, even as part of her warms to the suggestion. It has a nice ring to it. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not. You just have to want it so badly that you don’t care how hard it is anymore.” They look at each other, and Leah laughs suddenly, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. That was pretentious, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, just a little.”

“Still. If you want it, then it’s worth striving for, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” Haley winds a lock of hair around her finger, twisting it into a tight coil. “But Emily’s been making clothes for years, and look where it’s gotten her. Nowhere.”

“Emily makes clothes?”

“Oh, yeah. She makes almost everything she wears. Mom taught us both how to sew, but she’s the one who stuck with it.” She used to ask Haley to model for her, back when things were better between them. Haley kind of misses it, but she never knows what to say. “She made my prom dress for me. I was embarrassed because all my friends could afford expensive ones from the shops in Zuzu, and I… wasn’t very nice about it. But then I got there, and everyone was wearing the same six dresses but me. I got compliments all night.” Her hands twist in the borrowed fabric of Leah’s robe. “I still have it.”

She doesn’t know where all that came from. Leah has a way of drawing out things she’d rather keep hidden. Leah sets down her mug.

“I have an idea,” she says. “But you might not like it.”

“What is it?”

“You and Emily could combine your talents. She makes the clothes, you do the photoshoots. Try selling them to boutiques, or even set up your own shop online.” She motions to the laptop on the counter. “I sell my art that way occasionally. I’d be happy to help.”

Haley has no idea how to respond. Part of her wants to reject it outright. She and Emily can barely spend ten minutes together without fighting lately. But another part of her – the part she tries to ignore, the part that tells her things like _you don’t need new shoes_ and _hey, don’t say that, you know that’s not cool_ – gives her a little nudge, and instead she finds herself saying, “I’ll think about it.”

Leah beams. “I really think it’d be a good opportunity for you both,” she says, and stands, gathering their mugs. “Ready to get back to work?”

 

Haley goes home that night with her head spinning. Online boutiques are trendy now, aren’t they? And Emily’s designs are kooky, but that’s marketable. They’re custom, after all. _Exclusive_. She’s standing in front of the microwave heating up last night’s leftovers when the front door opens and Emily waltzes in.

“Hi,” she says when she comes into the kitchen, unfastening her earrings. “You’re up late.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” It’s technically true. The microwave beeps. Haley spoons red cabbage and rice into a tortilla and watches Emily pour herself a glass of juice. Her roots are starting to show, blonde against blue, and her profile looks so much like their mom’s that Haley has to look away for a minute. She swallows. “Hey.” Emily glances up. “Senior year. Did… did I ever say thank you for making my dress?”

She kind of wishes she could take it back the second it leaves her mouth, but it’s out there now, hanging between them. Emily tilts her head to one side. “Your prom dress? I don’t remember.” Her smile wavers around the edges. “Why?”

She’s lying. Haley can tell, which only makes it worse. She picks up her plate and looks at Emily’s dress again. It’s the same shade of blue as her hair, patterned with what look like clouds but on closer inspection are actually sheep.

“Everyone loved it,” she says. “They told me how pretty it was all night. So… thank you.”

She goes to her room, closes the door. She pretends not to hear Emily’s stunned, “You’re welcome.”

 

The next day is a bad one. Haley wakes up late with a headache, picks fights with both Emily and Alex for no reason, and spends the entire afternoon buried under her comforter reading old issues of _Vogue_. She doesn’t feel like going out, but she doesn’t want to admit that she’s not feeling well, either. The idea of showing weakness in front of Leah is intolerable. So, come evening she puts on the cutest outfit she can muster and drags herself down to the cabin, cold and miserable. Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be a mistake.

“You’re modeling again.”

“I thought that was the whole point.” Haley glances out the window. Rain lashes the glass, rattling them in their frames. It’s been raining since last night, and everything is hidden by a thick grey fog. Pelican Town has become an unfamiliar place comprised of familiar shapes, trees drifting in and out of the gloom. Leah sighs.

“No, I mean you’re posing. Your expressions all look fake.” Outside, the windchimes shriek, tangling together in a metallic rage. “Do you want to stop? We can try again later.”

Haley shakes her head. She wants to get this over with. “Can’t you just like, paint whatever expression you want?”

“If I wanted ‘whatever’, I wouldn’t have asked you to model for me. Now remember, you’re embodying a goddess. You’re at one with nature, because you _are_ nature. Okay?”

They’ve been at this for an hour. Haley doesn’t want to be at one with nature, she wants to be in Zuzu City, shopping for a new wardrobe and eating pink melon cake. She lifts her chin, trying to look regal, but falters when Leah sets her brush down.

“This isn’t working.” She looks at the water streaking the window pane. “The fortune teller said today was no good. I didn’t think much of it at first, but now… I don’t know, maybe she was right.”

“The _fortune teller_?” Haley asks, incredulous. “You seriously believe that crap?”

Leah shrugs. “Not at first. Now, maybe. I don’t know. You don’t?”

“Why should I?”

“It seems like people around here take that kind of thing seriously, is all.”

“So, what, because everyone else here is a gullible hick means I have to be too? Or is it just because you think being a complete freak runs in the family?”

“I wasn’t – “

“I am _not_ Emily.” The little voice in Haley’s head is back, whispering _shut up shut up shut up,_ but her mouth isn’t getting the message. She snatches her clothes from the chair next to the platform. “If you want to believe in a bunch of little kid stuff then whatever, I can’t stop you, but don’t think I do, okay? Go hang out with her if you want to talk about crystals and auras.” Maybe Leah and Emily do talk, at the saloon. Haley wouldn’t know. Leah eats dinner there sometimes. Leah is currently staring at her like she’s grown a second head. “You know what? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She steps down, yanks her underwear up her legs along with her jeans. “Forget this.”

“I don’t get you,” Leah says, hands in her hair. She seems to have forgotten there’s paint on them. “You’re fine being naked in front of me, but getting a genuine emotion out of you is like pulling teeth.”

Haley pulls her shirt on, wrestles her feet into her shoes. They’re roughly the same height, and when she stalks over, they’re nose to nose and all she can see are big green eyes and a smattering of freckles, filling her vision.

“You’re not better than me,” she says.

“I don’t think I’m better than you,” Leah says. Despite her frustration, she’s still calm, still composed. Haley kind of wants to scream. She digs her nails into her palms instead.

“You want ‘genuine emotion’ for your little painting? Then _make me feel something_.”

It’s an impulsive challenge born of frustration, nothing more. She’s not – it doesn’t _mean_ anything. She’s angry and she doesn’t know why she’s so angry. Leah’s hand comes up to rest on her shoulder, her thumb grazing Haley’s collarbone.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I know it’s easier to hide than let people see the real you. I did it for a long time.”

 _Stupid._ It’s stupid. Leah doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “I’m not hiding.” It doesn’t come out as cutting as she intends, and Leah just looks at her, palm warm through Haley’s shirt.

“Aren’t you?”

This isn’t –

She’s not –

She didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed, it’s not _fair_ –

She twists away, grabs her jacket off the back of the chair. Picks up her umbrella. Doesn’t look at Leah.

“I’m going home.”

“It’s pouring out,” Leah says. She sounds concerned, which Haley refuses to admit makes her feel better. “You can wait here until it stops. You don’t have to walk all the way back to town in that.”

Haley does anyway, just to spite her.

 _You could have stayed,_ the little voice hisses at her while she trudges home, mud sucking at her boots. _You could be nice and warm right now, drinking tea with the only friend besides Alex you’ve made in years._

“Shut up,” she whispers, and squeezes her eyes shut. “Shut up, shut up.”

She showers when she gets back to the house, then goes directly to bed even though it’s only seven-thirty. She can’t bear the thought of facing Emily. She finally falls asleep around nine and dreams of mud, sucking her down, down, down.


	2. Two

It rains for nearly a week.

Haley spends most of it holed up in her darkroom, developing all the pictures she hasn’t gotten around to yet. Most of them are worthless, but it keeps her mind off her last conversation with Leah. She’s not hiding, she tells herself, letting her unread texts and emails pile up. She’s not _scared,_ for Yoba’s sake. That would be ridiculous.

(Okay, so maybe it doesn’t keep her mind completely off Leah. But it helps.)

In the meantime, she unearths boxes of old film and disposable cameras, artifacts from the beginning of her love affair with photography that had been long packed away and left to gather dust. Not all of it is salvageable, but she does find a few that she wants to keep – Dusty playing with their old dog Biscuit as puppies, the sunflower fields in full bloom, a picture of her, Alex and Emily at the beach. She lingers over that last one, trying to remember who had taken it. Her mom, maybe, or Alex’s. The three of them are tanned and freckled, verging on sunburnt with their hair wet from the sea. Alex is a scrawny thing with wild eyes, and Haley soft with baby fat; they both grin to show off their missing teeth. Emily crouches next to her, a gawky preteen with a purple streak in her ponytail. There’s a dark smudge in the corner, and when Haley realizes what it is, a reluctant laugh escapes her.

Every single photo their dad had ever taken, he managed to get one of his fingers in the shot. That was how she’d gotten into photography in the first place. He’d turn it over and say, “Here you go, sunshine, you do it. I’ve got too many thumbs,” and she’d groan and roll her eyes, pretending that she hadn’t started to anticipate the weight of the camera in her hands. She looks at the photo again, that shadow cutting a crescent-shaped slice out of the sky, and all she feels is lost.

 _I’m not a coward,_ she tells herself later, digging through the bottom drawer of her vanity until she finds what she’s looking for. Film rattles in the canister, a hollow clicking sound. It’s a full roll, but it’s the last shot she develops. It’s the only one she needs.

Family vacations had been a rare and precious thing growing up, a chance to escape from the Valley and glimpse what lay beyond. At the time, she hadn’t understood what it took to make those happen, the months of cheap, canned food and itchy hand-me-downs, the careful evaluation of every coin spent. She’d only known the end result – skiffs that flew them across the ocean, exotic hotel rooms with beds you could drown in, salt crusted into her hair and glittering on her skin from a day at the beach. She and Emily would build sand castles and race through the shallow waves while their parents lay on their towels, reading or talking in low voices with their hands linked. Emily would talk too, making up stories about the crab princes and princesses who lived in the castles they built, and at the end of all their races she’d fall over with her limbs splayed out in all directions, claiming that Haley was too fast for her to keep up. Even when she’d outgrown the stories, even when she’d yelled at her sister to stop treating her like a baby, Emily still let her win.

The picture hanging on the line is from four years ago, before the unexpected windfall from their mom’s book and the never-ending tour that followed. The four of them stand on the cobbled streets of Castamare, the island to the south, a boarded-up villa behind them with yellowing shutters and green paint peeling off the front door. A stray cat lurks in the background. She hasn’t seen her parents in over two years. Do they still look the same, her dad with his blond hair and twice-broken nose that never healed right, her mom with her soft blue eyes and quick, expressive hands? They only ever send postcards, never pictures. In the photo, she and Emily are on either side of their dad, his arms slung around their shoulders. Their mom smiles serenely in the middle. She’d asked a random passerby to take their picture, and when it was done her dad had wrapped them all up in a bear hug, ignoring Haley’s complaints that he was mussing her hair.

“I promise you, Wendy, that book of yours is going to get picked up any day now, and as soon as it does, we’re buying this place.”

“This place sucks,” Haley had said, ducking out of his embrace. “It’s been abandoned for like a hundred years.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Emily said, ignoring her glare. “It has character.” Their dad chuckled.

“That’s my girl. Just needs a little fixing up.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” their mother cautioned, but she was already pink-cheeked and glowing, the way she always got whenever their dad started in on his latest big idea. Even at eighteen, Haley was sure she’d never love someone half as much as her parents loved each other. “Nothing’s happened yet.”

“But it will.” He’d bent down and kissed her, ignoring Haley and Emily’s exaggerated gagging noises. “And when it does, we’ll move here and spend every day in paradise. How’s that sound?”

Haley doesn’t realize she’s crying until the first fat tears drip down her cheeks, the faces in the photo dissolving into a watery blur. It was stupid, wasn’t it? To cry, period, let alone over something like that. That was just how he was, her dad – his dreams were bigger than he was, too big to contain, and they spilled out everywhere like a leaky faucet. He probably didn’t even remember Castamare.

She claps a hand over her mouth, but the sob bubbles through her fingers, ugly and wet. The photo flutters as she sinks to the floor, door solid against her back, chest heaving like a wounded animal, and then it all pours out at once, tears and snot and huge, gulping breaths of air between whimpers that can’t be stopped any longer. They’d promised. The tour was supposed to have ended two years ago, but the tour had turned into an extended vacation which turned into a sequel which turned into a movie deal, a whirlwind of bright lights and accolades that had swept her parents away and left everything else behind. They’d been in Zuzu less than six months ago, two and a half hours away, and they hadn’t – did they even miss her? Even _think_ about her in more than passing? They were supposed to buy the villa and restore it to its former beauty. She was supposed to wake up in paradise and sit on the terrace overlooking the ocean while her dad cooked breakfast and sang off-key, while Emily sewed and their mom clacked away on the old typewriter she claimed was her muse. They were _supposed_ to.

She cries and cries until she’s sure there can’t be anything left, throat raw and bleary-eyed, and still it keeps coming. Over her head, the doorknob rattles. “Haley?” Emily’s voice filters through, alarmed. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” Haley croaks.

“You are not,” Emily says, and for once Haley can’t really argue with her. “Haley, please. Open the door.”

Haley swipes at her eyes, sniffles. Her hands come away with streaks of runny mascara. Her head hurts, but more than that, she simply feels drained. Wrung out like a washcloth until all she can feel is the raw edge of her emptiest places. “Go away.”

“Haley – “

“ _Please._ ” The word is fragile, easily broken, and Emily falls silent. “Please, just… not right now.”

“Okay.” There’s reluctance in her sister’s voice, but it’s softer now too, like she’s one of Emily’s birds. She should hate it but she doesn’t. “Not today. But you can always talk to me. You know that, right? About anything.”

“I know,” Haley says, mostly to make her leave. Emily hesitates for a moment, but then her footfalls fade away, down the hall. Haley almost calls out on impulse, but the words won’t cooperate. She sits in the dark with _come back_ leaden on her tongue, listening to the rain.

 

They pretend it never happened. At least, Haley does. Emily flutters around the next morning with anxious eyes, giving Haley meaningful looks across the breakfast table, and Haley pretends not to see those, either. She’s sprawled out on her bed a few hours later, scrolling through Armani’s summer collection sneak peek when a knock comes at the door, and Emily pokes her head into the room. Haley groans.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Leah’s here for you,” Emily says. Haley almost drops her phone on her face.

“What?”

“She asked if you were home.” The gleam in Emily’s eye assures Haley she’s not talking her way out of this one. “Since when are you two friends?”

Haley has no idea how to answer. She’s not even sure if they are friends. She’s not sure _what_ they are. She sits up, and Emily leans back into the hallway and chirps, “She’ll be out in just a sec!” One more significant look, and then she’s gone, leaving Haley to panic in privacy.

She’s trapped. Leah knows she’s here, and there’s nothing she can do that won’t make things worse later. This is, of course, all Emily’s fault. She runs a brush through her hair, puts on a nicer top, and goes to face the music with her head held high; she might be freaking out, but nobody else needs to know that.

“Afternoon.” Leah leans against the doorway, the sky a vast stripe of blue behind her. Her hair is pinned back into its customary braid, and she’s dressed for the weather, stripped down to shorts and a tank-top now that the sun is shining again. A wicker basket dangles from the crook of her elbow. “You’re going to want to wear your walking shoes,” she adds, looking Haley over. “It’s still muddy out.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Leah says, and her smile steals any further protest from Haley’s mouth. “We’re going on a picnic.”

 

So.

Here she is again: ground giving way under her boots, birds singing now that the rain is gone. Spring is beginning to turn its face toward summer, everything in full and riotous bloom, and Leah leads Haley past the lake, deeper into the heart of Cindersap. She doesn’t say where they’re headed, and Haley doesn’t ask. She refuses to be the one who breaks first. The path winds through the trees and up the hill, into a thicket so tightly-woven it’s impossible to see what lays on the other side. She hesitates, but Leah forges ahead. At the top, she looks over her shoulder.

“You coming?”

Haley is tempted to tell her _no, you can’t just drag me out in the woods without warning and expect me to go along with it_. But she’s already come this far, and Leah’s hand is sturdy in hers as she pulls Haley the rest of the way up the hill.

A felled oak blocks their way out of the trees, gnarled and grey, but Leah scales the roots like it’s nothing and helps Haley follow suit. Grass and leaves crunch beneath their feet when they land on the other side. Leah checks the contents of the basket, and Haley puts her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath.

“How much farther do we have to walk?”

“Not far at all,” Leah says. She points, and Haley is momentarily stunned into silence. Pink and white petals drift through the air. “We’re here.”

How is it possible – Haley has to wonder – how is it in _any way_ possible that she’s lived in Pelican Town her entire life, and never known such a place existed, while Leah seems intimately familiar? The meadow is like something out of a dream, with wildflowers of all hues blanketing the long sweet grass and sunlight pouring on them like melted butter. In its center grows a cherry tree, branches heavy with blossoms.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Leah says. She’s looking past Haley, a soft smile on her lips, and Haley is suddenly irritated by the wistful longing in her eyes. It’s a _tree._

“It’s okay,” she says.

They settle underneath it on the blanket Leah had brought, and unpack their lunch – sandwiches with braised leeks and goat cheese, containers of fruit salad and fresh tomatoes with radishes in a vinaigrette, and apricot tart with a thermos of cold dandelion tea to wash it all down. Leah pours them each a cup and hands one to Haley. Her expression has cooled into something serious, the tail end of her braid fluttering in the breeze like a kite.

“Can we talk about the other day?”

Haley nibbles on her sandwich. The bread is soft and crusty, the cheese rich against the crunch of the leeks. She nods, and Leah looks down at the cup in her hands. “I feel like I might have been too harsh on you,” she says. “I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and it wasn’t the right time to push you. We were both having a bad day.” She takes a sip of tea. “I’m sorry for my part in it.”

“I’m sorry too,” Haley says after a moment, and Leah looks surprised, which immediately puts her back on the defensive. “What?”

“Nothing.” The corners of Leah’s mouth twitch. “I just… wasn’t expecting that.”

“I can apologize sometimes.” Haley picks up a chunk of strawberry, pops it into her mouth. “I’m not a complete bitch.”

“I didn’t – “

“It’s fine. I know what people say.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, eats another strawberry. Leah frowns.

“What do people say?”

“Please. You know.” Haley waves a hand dismissively. “’Haley’s a brat, Haley’s a princess, Haley’s a stuck-up townie who thinks she’s better than us.’ In high school I was voted Most Likely to be someone’s trophy wife.” She used to think it was a compliment. “Emily’s the good one, I’m the pretty one. That’s how it’s always been.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Leah says sharply, all traces of amusement gone. “And unfair to both of you.”

“Is it, though?”

“Of course it is. Emily is so much more than ‘the good one’, and you…” Leah pauses, like she’s trying to find the shape of the words before she says them. “Haley, you are so much more than pretty.”

“Right,” Haley says. “That’s why you asked me to model naked.”

“That’s right. I did. And you know what I learned?”

“I look good naked?”

Leah snorts. “You’re prickly, and defensive, and sometimes you’re rude even when you don’t think you are, and you run away at the first sign of trouble because Yoba forbid anyone know you feel things – “

“Okay,  _wow,_ ” Haley starts, sitting up straight.

“ – _and._ And.” Leah holds up one finger, looking her in the eyes. “You’re clever, and contradictory, and interesting, and sweet when you think no one will notice, and you come alive when you talk about photography, and _yes_ , you're beautiful, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’re so afraid of being seen for who you really are.”

“Everyone takes one look at me and thinks they know everything about me. Why shouldn’t I be who they think I am?” She doesn’t realize how bitter the words are until she tastes them.

“Okay,” Leah says. “But are you happy?”

It’s a ridiculous question, Haley thinks. She’s never been happy trapped in the fishbowl that is Pelican Town.

Has she?

It’s true that in the last month or so, she’s found herself more appreciative of her surroundings. After all, as Leah had pointed out during one of their first sessions, any photographer would kill to be surrounded by this kind of natural bounty. That’s most of what she finds when she sifts through her recent memories – her and Leah, sitting at the table, talking about art, and through that lens, everything else had become more alive to her as well. It had happened so gradually, she’d barely noticed. She runs her hand through her hair out of habit and comes away with a fist full of stray petals.

“Sometimes.” The word is little more than a whisper. “When I’m with you.”

It sounds stupid now that she’s said it out loud, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Leah doesn’t know her past, doesn’t treat her like she’s still the same person she was in high school. If anything, she acts like she knows there’s more beneath the surface, even when Haley herself doesn’t. It kind of makes her _want_ to be more than the small-town princess she’s played at for so long. Not that she has any intention of telling Leah that, since being true doesn’t make it less embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem so bad when Leah looks at her like springtime itself, soft and warm and full of promise.

“Can I tell you something?”

Haley nods.

“I’ve had the idea for this painting since I moved here, but every time I tried to work on it, it was like… I couldn’t get the design right, or it didn’t feel like the right time. I couldn’t see the final product. So after a while, I put it aside. Told myself I was waiting for my muse.” Leah’s hand lifts and hovers in mid-air, tentative. “But as soon as you walked into my studio, that very first time you modeled for me, I knew it had to be you. Not because of what you look like, but because of this.” She touches Haley’s sternum lightly, fingertips resting against her skin. “You have a good heart, Haley. You do. The problem is that you’d rather break it yourself than give anyone else the chance.”

Haley’s throat is closed up so tight she can barely breathe. She wants to kiss Leah. She wants to cry. She does neither of those things.

A bird chirps overhead, a sweet, staccato burst of notes. They both look up to see a bright flash of tailfeathers, and small, dark red fruits bobble along with the motion of the branch. Leah eyes them.

“Have you ever tried wild cherries?”

There are only a handful the animals haven’t consumed, but Leah scales the tree to pick them anyway, the wiry muscles in her arms and shoulders bunching as she climbs. Handkerchief full, she dangles from the branch one-handed for a second, then drops back to the ground in a crouch. She’s flushing and grinning, hair starting to come loose from its pins. “Here.” She opens the cloth and offers one to Haley, lustrous and round. “Best cherry you’ll ever taste, I promise.”

Haley leans forward and plucks it from Leah’s grasp with her teeth, lips brushing callused fingertips. Juice drenches her tongue when she bites down, sweet and tart and a thousand times better than anything from a store. She holds Leah’s gaze when she takes the pit out of her mouth and tosses it aside, into the grass. “You’re right,” she says. “It’s amazing.”

“I’m glad we agree,” Leah murmurs, and cups her hand around the back of Haley’s neck, drawing her in.

It’s been a long time since Haley kissed someone – really kissed them, not some sloppy, meaningless fumble behind a club in Zuzu City – but she doesn’t remember it ever being like this. The barest brush of Leah’s tongue against hers lights her whole body up, and they end up sideways across the blanket, limbs tangled and food forgotten. She runs her hands up Leah’s arms and down her back, muscles flexing beneath her palms, and Leah rolls on top of her and kisses her until she’s breathless, thumb stroking Haley’s cheekbone. Her braid falls over her shoulder, and when Haley undoes the elastic at the end it falls around them like a curtain of fire, shimmering in the sunlight.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” she confesses, and Leah leans down and kisses her again, blocking out the rest of the world. She tastes like cherries.

 

Sunset blankets the mountains by the time Leah walks her home, hair still loose and wild down her back. She kisses Haley’s cheek before she leaves, and Haley is so busy trying not to swoon that she doesn’t see the curtain flutter in the window. She opens the front door to find Emily sitting on the couch, a cup of tea and a half-done cross-stitch on the table in front of her.

“Hi.” She grins. “How was your date?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Gus is sick, so the Saloon is closed tonight.” Emily claps her hands together, expression gleeful. “So it _was_ a date!”

“That’s none of your business.” Haley kicks her shoes off and leaves them in a heap on the mat. _Of course_. She can’t have one nice thing to herself for five minutes without someone trying to pick it apart, and with Emily’s big mouth, the whole town was going think she and Leah were engaged come morning. “I’m going to my room.”

“Haley, wait.”

“Seriously, just leave me alone, okay?”

“I saw the picture,” Emily says. Her smile is gone when Haley turns to face her, and she leans forward to pick up her cup. “The one from Castamare,” she adds as an afterthought. As if she could be talking about anything else.

“Why were you in my dark room?” Haley demands. Emily’s knuckles go white.

“I was just – “

“I told you never to go in my room when I’m not there. I _told_ you – were you snooping? Because I swear to Yoba, if you were snooping through my stuff – “

“I was in there because you won’t talk to me!”

The silence that follows is deafening. Emily cries sometimes, and gets loud when she’s excited, but she never yells. Not like this, with her mouth all twisted and her cheeks gone red, tea sloshing over the rim of the cup when she slams it down.

“That’s why I was in your room, Haley, because you’ve been acting strange for _weeks_ and then the other day you were crying like the world was ending and you _still_ won’t talk to me, so yes, I snooped. And you know what I found? A picture from the film you told me you lost!” Haley opens her mouth, but Emily shakes her head fiercely, hair whipping her cheeks. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want those photos, even if you don’t? I mean, seriously, do you ever think about anyone but yourself?”

“It’s not the same,” Haley snaps, stung.

“What do you mean, it’s not the same?”

“Because they always liked you better than me!” She’s never said it out loud. It sounds smaller and pettier than she thought it would, hanging in the air between them. “That was all I ever heard growing up. ‘Emily’s so smart’, ‘Emily’s so responsible’, ‘why can’t you be more like your sister?’ I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t like you.” She crosses her arms and looks away, biting the inside of her cheek. “Sometimes I think they don’t even miss me.”

“Oh,” Emily says, lip trembling. “Is… is that why you hate me?”

Haley’s never been punched in the gut, but she thinks this might be what it’s like – one swift, unexpected blow, driving all the air from her lungs.

“What are you talking about? I don’t hate you!”

“You don’t?”

“Of course I don’t,” Haley says, baffled, and Emily puts her face in her hands.

“Half the time we fight, and the other half you treat me like you wish I’d just go away.” Her voice is muffled. The hurt in it is not. “You never talk to me, or want to spend time together, and the last few weeks… it feels like we’re practically strangers.” Quieter: “I never wanted that.”

Haley takes a tentative step forward, then another, edging closer until she can sink onto the cushion next to her sister, hands in her lap. “I’m sorry.” It feels weird to say. Foreign, but freeing, like the horrible, swampy feeling that’s been pooling in her stomach is beginning to recede. “I know we don’t always get along, and sometimes you drive me crazy, but I never meant to make you feel like I hate you.”

“Sometimes you drive me crazy too.” Emily lowers her hands. She still looks like she might cry, eyes watery, but there’s resolve there, too. “But… look, Mom and Dad aren’t coming home anytime soon. We both know it, no matter what they say, and all I want us for us to be able to talk to each other without fighting. You’re my _sister_ , Haley. Don’t you think it’d be easier to get through this together?” She takes Haley's hand, gives her fingers a squeeze. “Please. Tell me what's going on.”

Maybe it’s the little voice in her head, or the taste of cherries lingering on her tongue. Maybe it’s the feeling of being truly seen for the first time in a while. Whatever the reason, Haley finds herself taking a deep breath, and something unfurls inside her, like wings spreading in preparation for flight.

“Okay,” she says.

 

She tells Emily everything. Once she starts, she can't seem to stop, and Emily listens, only breaking once to pour them both a fresh cup of tea. Doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t judge, just nods along earnestly, and it feels _good_. She’s not sure why she was even afraid – at least, until she gets to the part about the picnic and Emily looks like she might spontaneously combust from sheer excitement.

“What?” she asks, alarmed.

“Oh, Haley.” Emily’s eyes are over-bright again, but from happiness this time instead of tears. “You’re in love.”

A laugh squeaks its way out of Haley’s chest, high-pitched and nervous. “It’s been less than two months!”

“So? The heart wants what it wants.”

Haley just rolls her eyes, because Emily thinks everyone is like their parents, with their very own romance novel waiting just around the corner. She likes Leah, sure, but she’s not in _love_.

Is she?

She points at the embroidery on the coffee table, mostly to change the subject. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, this? It’s a commission for Shane.” Emily holds it up so Haley can see. There’s the outline of a cow sewn there, grazing in a green-gold field, with the words _Home is Where the Cattle Roam_ stitched at the top. “It’s going to be Marnie’s birthday present this year.”

“Shane?” Haley says, disbelieving. Leah’s voice echoes in her head – _this town is full of surprises._

“I keep telling you, he’s not as bad as he wants people to think.” Emily squints at it, adding one more tiny stitch. “I just hope she likes it.”

“She will.” Haley looks at row after row of flawless embroidery and thinks about the clothes lining Emily’s closet, each piece made with a loving hand. About her prom dress, still hanging in the back of her wardrobe. “Hey.”

Emily looks at her.

“Do you want to start a website?”

 

The day of their last session, Haley shows up early, because it’s either that or sit around and let her nerves eat away at her. Leah lets her in with paint-streaked hands, and presses a quick kiss to her temple, more a brush of lips than anything else. It doesn’t feel like nearly enough, so she tilts her face up, hoping Leah will take the hint. It goes unregistered.

“Make yourself comfortable. I just have to finish setting up.”

Haley nods and sits at the table, trying not to look disappointed when Leah ducks back into the studio. It’s not like she was expecting a bouquet or anything, but after the other day… well. Maybe Leah just doesn’t want to get paint all over her. She’s considerate like that.

“How much more do you have left to do?” she asks.

“Not much,” Leah calls back. “There are a few finishing details I need to handle, but once the face is done, the hard part’s over.” Something scrapes against the floor. “Are you excited?”

“Why would I be? I’ve only been waiting for two months to see it.”

The studio looks different today. Leah’s pushed the modeling platform to the side and pulled up a chair across from her, the canvas between them. “I figured it’d be pointless to have you undress when all I have left is the face,” she explains, picking up her palette knife. “Give me a minute to mix my paints and we’ll get this finished up.”

“Wow,” Haley says. “First you don’t want to kiss me, now you don’t want to see me naked. Harsh.”

She’s mostly joking (mostly, kind of), but Leah blinks like she’s coming out of a trance, and guilt colors her expression. “Haley, no – “

“It’s okay. Like. If you don’t want to.” It’s not, but she’s willing to pretend, if it’ll make it easier on both of them. Leah shakes her head.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s why I waited until we weren’t in the studio to kiss you.” The palette knife cleaves through a dollop of royal blue paint and swirls it with white until it looks like a patch of cloudless sky. “I took a bunch of figure-drawing classes in college as an elective, and some of us had trouble with the nudity aspect of it at first. They taught me to desexualize it. To accept bodies as they are, separate from the social and culture baggage we’re all carrying around.” She shrugs. “I know it’s not the same, but I’ve carried that mindset into my work ever since, and I promise it has nothing to do with my attraction to you. It’s just incredibly inappropriate to hit on your model.”

That’s… _huh_.

Haley doesn’t chase people. She’s never been the one to make the first move, to let people know she wants them without being sure they want her more. She never shows her hand, and she’s tired of playing it safe. She’s tired of breaking her own heart. Her hands coast down to her thighs, indecisive, then back up, lifting the hem of her shirt. Leah’s hand hovers over a tube of yellow paint.

“What are you doing?”

Haley doesn’t answer right away. She unclasps her bra and shimmies out of her skirt and underwear, and then her clothes are in a puddle around her bare feet and she’s naked in the studio, sunlight dripping warm on her skin through the window. It’s different this time. She’s exposed and Leah can see all of her, not just her skin and her heart pounds, pulse jumping in her throat. She puts her hands on her hips.

“What about your model hitting on you?”

Leah’s eyes never leave her face. “Don’t move,” she whispers, picking up her brush. “Don’t change a thing.”

It doesn’t take long. Leah paints furiously, pausing only once to change colors, and Haley watches her hands at work, brain spinning out memories on an unrelenting loop: flower petals in her hair, fingertips on her sternum, cherries on her tongue. The studio is cool enough, but her skin is flush with heat. The paintbrush drops into the water glass Leah keeps next to the easel, and there’s something strangely reverent about the way she approaches Haley, like she doesn’t know how to proceed.

“I don’t want to get paint on you.”

“What, you think I can’t handle getting a little dirty?”

Leah’s expression relaxes, a sly smile creeping in, and she trails a finger down Haley’s cheek, leaving a smudge of blue behind. “You tell me.”

Haley grabs her suspenders and kisses her, Leah’s teeth colliding with her lip. It’s not the perfect kiss she was envisioning, but then Leah grabs her thighs and hoists her up like she weighs nothing, carrying her to the modeling stand, and Haley decides perfect is overrated. Perfect can’t be better than Leah’s mouth on her neck, better than clever, callused hands cupping her breasts, her hips, pressing her into the blanket spread across the stand. Perfect can’t be better than Leah fumbling to shed her clothes while Haley touches whatever she can reach, muscle and bone and freckled skin blood-hot beneath her palms. Perfect is Leah’s fingers and tongue curling between her thighs, worshipful, and Haley closes her eyes and melts like the last of winter into spring. She is the river; she overflows her banks. Leah kisses the slick skin of her inner thigh, murmurs something she doesn’t catch, and Haley reaches for her without seeing, a flower straining toward the sun.

 

“Can you at least _try_ to look like you’re taking this seriously?”

“Fine. Is this better?”

“Much, thank you.” The camera shutter snaps. From across the room, Emily gives her a thumbs up.

Summer has washed over the valley in the past few weeks, full-bodied and scorching. Everyone leaves their windows open and fans blowing even at night, and Pierre finally caves and has air conditioning installed just to compete (Morris has made a point of coming into town nearly every day to remind everyone Joja-Mart has an industrial generator). Leah’s cabin is cooler than their house, being on the water, and it only takes a little rearranging to turn her rarely-inhabited bedroom into the backdrop for Haley’s newest photoshoot. Alex tugs at the cuffs on his striped button-down, sweat beading on his forehead.

“I dunno how I feel about this fancy dress crap, Hales.”

“Oh, whatever. You look hot.” She lowers her voice. “I’ll make sure the farmer sees them.”

“Shut up,” Alex says, but his ears go red and he squares his shoulders, standing that much taller. She shoos him off to get a drink of water and beckons Elliott. It’s the first time she’s seen him in anything other than his three-piece suit with the velvet overcoat, and he looks oddly at home in the outfit Emily has chosen for him, hair twisted up into a bun and pants slung low on his hips. He straightens his vest and smiles indulgently.

“Have you decided on a name for your website yet?”

“It’s the Pelican Boutique. This shoot is for the Queen of the Clouds collection.” She’d let Emily pick the names. Elliott nods, thoughtful.

“Lovely.”

“Thanks,” Haley says, because she’s not sure what else to say – this is the longest conversation they’ve ever had, and she still thinks he’s weird, more like a romance novel come to life than a real person, but Leah likes him and he’d agreed to help launch their project, so she’s trying. She sneaks a glance at the bed, where her sister and Leah are discussing various uses for goat cheese. Leah’s wearing Emily’s newest creation, a hand-dyed sundress that starts out leaf-green and deepens to emerald. The flower crown she’d woven for the shoot sits lopsided, white and gold spangles like stars in her hair.

“She’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her, you know,” Elliott says quietly. “Given what she’s been through to get here, I think she’s earned it.” This time it’s Haley’s turn to blush, and he winks at her. “Photograph me from the left, would you? That’s my good side.”

Haley still isn’t sure if she likes him or hates him, but the scales are starting to tip in his favor. She takes his picture from the left, and then it’s Leah’s turn to pull her aside while he’s flirting with Emily. Trying to, anyway – Haley’s pretty sure her sister wouldn’t recognize a come-on if it slapped her across the face.

“I’m proud of you.” Leah loops her arm around Haley’s waist, fingers resting on her hip. “This is going to be great.”

“Maybe,” Haley says, but she leans into Leah’s side anyway, even though it’s too hot to be touching anybody for long. Leah, who has faith in her like nobody else ever has. Her heart feels strange and tender whenever she thinks about it, like the world’s most exquisite bruise. “We’ll see.”

“Speaking of seeing.” Leah takes her hand. “Come with me for a minute.”

All the windows in the studio hang open, fan whirring in the corner. Paper and fabric flutter wherever its face turns. The canvas sits on its easel, enormous as ever and shielded from direct view, and Leah motions her forward. “Take a look.”

It’s dumb to be nervous, Haley tells herself. It’s just a painting. A painting of her, no less. But it’s also a painting Leah’s been working on for literal _months_ , filling out the background and final details with a painstaking hand for the last two weeks alone, and if she doesn’t like it – _what if she doesn’t like it_? Is there etiquette in this situation she’s supposed to follow? Because she doesn’t want to lie, but if she doesn’t –

Her mouth falls open.

“What do you think?” Leah asks. It’s the first time Haley’s seen her like this, anxious teeth worrying at her lip while she rocks back on her heels, and she has to take a minute to collect herself before she can answer because seriously, how can Leah not _know_?

“It’s perfect,” she says.

The goddess in the painting towers at its center, rising out of cool blue lake water atop a giant sunflower, the oyster to her pearl. She wears her nudity like armor, demanding the viewer’s eye; she’s taller than the trees, taller than the forest Haley now recognizes as Cindersap, her green-gold hair crowned with fairy roses and her skin wet with dew. Deer and rabbits cluster at the edges to witness her. The eight phases of the moon arc through the sky above her head, and she holds a stardrop aloft, glowing in her hand. Her eyes are alive, wild with defiance and fear and hope all at once. Haley swallows, and Leah drapes herself over Haley’s shoulders, face pressed into her hair.

“It’s called Rebirth,” she says, “and I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.”

The warning prickle of unshed tears buzzes behind Haley’s eyes, and she dabs at them hastily, pretending to adjust her contacts. Leah lets her. “So.” She clears her throat, voice thick, and tries to sound normal. “What are you going to do with it? Because this is clearly the best thing you’ve ever done, and you could totally make a fortune. Just saying.”

Leah laughs. “When it first came to me, I planned on trying to sell it. But now?” She kisses the spot where Haley’s neck meets her shoulder, and her embrace tightens, just a little. “I think this one is mine to keep.”


End file.
